Hash Over: Holiday Jam, Cut Rate Wine And Other Stuff

Don't know what to do with odd, even somewhat interesting and likely helpful news of this sort, but pass it along...

Not only concerned for public health, but also for the hobby-deprived, credit-burdened gift-givers this holiday season, gourmands at Texas Oncology developed Jingle Jam--a Southern-style preserve they're willing to give away...in recipe form.

Yep, you gotta make it yourself. But the recipe uses cancer fighting ingredients such as cranberries (full of flavenoids, a no-no in the "Avoid the Noid" 80s, but now widely promoted by physicians...or have I confused something?), fruit and good old Texas jalapenos. More than 90,000 state residents are diagnosed with cancer every year, according to the folks at Texas Oncology. If making up a batch of holiday preserves helps, then why not?

They recommend it as a glaze for pork, a dressing for goat cheese or to enhance cream cheese dips, amongst other things...so it's not, apparently, a cure for obesity.

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Just to confirm all those myths about the 'burbs, Benihana opened a branch in Plano's Legacy Business Park. The dinner-as-entertainment chain specializes in "teppanyaki-style" (their words) tableside highjinks, but they have (like every other restaurant in the Western world) added sushi to their menu.

The restaurant opens for lunch--to take advantage of bored cube-dwellers--and dinner.

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If you read this now (meaning on the day we posted the information) and have a hankerin' to speed over to Oak Cliff, Thursday is half price wine night at Bolsa. That's right, every bottle in their inventory available at a deep discount, every Thursday. Who needs to go into work early on Friday, anyway?